LETTER Even independent movies are costly to produce

As a filmmaker, I truly appreciate the attention and support the Register gives our local efforts to produce films. However, the article "Friends make a movie on a shoestring and dream of the spotlight" is misleading.

Letter to the Editor

Published 12:00 am, Wednesday, August 20, 2003

The article suggests to a public that is already hard pressed to understand the workings of independent filmmaking and especially film financing that a quality film, something that looks like "Kissing Jessica Stein," can be made on a $9,000 budget similar to the one enumerated by the West Haven filmmakers who are shooting "Save the Forest."

High quality production values, the kind that turn a small independent film into the slick Hollywood lookalike Jessica Stein turned into, need real funding.

Any film can be its own miracle, and I hope "Save the Forest" finds its niche, but it will take lots more than $9,000 to give it the kind of packaging it will need to get into theatrical release.

A truly low budget is a budget under $6 million; a shoestring budget is anything under $3 million.

Projects like "Save the Forest," shot on mini-DV (video), are very inexpensive to shoot because cameras and tapes can be purchased inexpensively. But a final product, a film with production values of the quality of Jessica Stein, cannot be bought so cheaply.

2002s "Tadpole" is a good example. Depending on who cites the budget  the numbers vary for public consumption, depending on the reason and circumstances of disclosure  "Tadpole" cost in the range of $250,000. The producers turned around and sold the film to Miramax for $7 million. In reality, to get the film into limited distribution, "Tadpole" actually cost closer to the realm of $3 million.

When the producers sold "Tadpole" to Miramax, they then had to pay everyone whose deferred salaries kept the budget looking so lean. Miramax then invested great expense to give the film its signature look. I never saw the earlier version, but I daresay it was probably very grainy, very difficult to hear, certainly not the film you can rent today at Tommy Ks.

According to trade sources, "Kissing Jessica Stein," produced, directed and funded by a Guilford-raised filmmaker and her family, really cost between $1 million and $1.7 million to make.

Statistically, the vast majority of independent films never make it to any kind of distribution; they wind up in "cans," on shelves, rarely shown except in directors living rooms. Theatrical audiences demand vivid color, crisp sound, well lit characters and a few bells and whistles at the very least; all those cost real money.

Most filmmakers dreams rely on those financiers willing to dole out money for the bells and whistles.